


hold on to me

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [26]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Break Up, F/M, M/M, Miscommunication, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: Freddie and Ruby have been growing further and further apart, and Ephram's been stressed too, dealing with Ruby constantly being stalked, attacked, threatened, and injured no matter how much he and Freddie try to protect her. Ruby left for Charleston and her family to try and figure herself out and now she's returned, and it's time for them -- the three of them -- to talk.
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673





	hold on to me

**Author's Note:**

> >   
>  Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)  
> 

  
Ruby clasped the little journal - something she’d picked up in Charleston - tightly against her chest. It was new, plain black with a spiraled edge, and served as a place for her to write down her thoughts. Write down things that bothered her. Things that scared her. Things that made her happy. It was also the place where she’d written down all the details she’d found out about the runes in her parent’s attic, even going so far as to tape pictures of the symbols to the pages. She made notes around them; the things Ephram had told her, and a few things she’d found out on her own.  
  
But most importantly, it was where she had been writing down her thoughts and revelations in regards to her marriage. Taking notes on the things she’d talked about with both Freddie and Ephram. Having the little book helped Ruby sort all the things that ran through her head. Because in truth, she would never be able to properly articulate what she wanted to say. Not without help. She could write it down though, so that it stayed. So that it couldn’t be lost to nervousness or anything else.  
  
The day she’d arrived home - not wanting him to think she’d forgotten, or that it wasn’t of utmost importance, or that she was trying to brush anything under the rug again - Ruby had told Freddie that she knew they needed to talk, and had asked him for a day or two to settle back in before they did. A day or two to rest, and to order her thoughts and her feelings so that when they did have their conversation, Ruby had all her ducks in a row.  
  
Freddie had graciously agreed.  
  
Now it was the evening of the third day. And Ruby knew that it was time for them to sit down and talk. Really talk. To sort out the bullshit, as Ephram had put it. And while she was confident that she’d learned some hard truths in her time away, and was ready to take full responsibility - and begin to make amends - for the ways she’d hurt her husband, Ruby was still scared. How could she not be? Facing the worst parts of yourself was never easy. Neither was facing the fact that she’d deeply, deeply hurt the man she loved with everything she was. Or facing the fact that it wouldn’t come without consequences, be they short-lived or long-lasting.  
  
So Ruby was changing herself, changing her life, her outlook, and learning to see the parts of herself that were - regardless of her not intending them to be - ugly, flawed, and unkind. Just as she was learning to open her eyes to the parts of her husband that she’d been overlooking. To see the things he needed from her. Things she should have been giving him all along.  
  
So she was ready to lay herself - and her trust - absolutely bone bare, and step forwards, out of the past, and into their future. Because not having him there was not an option. Ever.  
  
“Hey,” she said, coming up behind where Freddie was sitting on the sofa. She carded a hand gently through his hair as she pressed a kiss to his crown. “Can I interrupt your show?”  
  
Freddie, for his part, remembered the nod of his head and his murmured, “Of course, love,” less as gracious agreement, and more as being bereft of any other option. After all, what was he supposed to do, when, after two weeks of apparent rumination on the subject of his feelings and the problems they shared as a couple - apparent, because they hadn’t touched on any of it while she was away - Ruby had arrived home and promptly informed him that she wasn’t ready to speak to him yet.  
  
What else could he do? Make demands? Dig his heels in and insist that she ask after his needs? Of course he couldn’t. So instead, he’d told her that that was fine; that when she was ready, he would be ready.  
  
And then he’d fallen back to wait - because there was nothing else to be done.  
  
She would get to him when the time was right.  
  
Freddie had missed Ruby while she was away - he loved her, so of course he’d felt her absence - but it was a bittersweet sort of feeling because of the distance that had begun to creep up between them long before she’d gone. Distance he’d cultivated as a means to insulate himself from hurt. And now that she was back again - back, but keeping him in limbo; until she was ready, until her needs had been met and she’d decided it was time to talk - Freddie couldn’t help but think that maybe she’d already told him everything he needed to know without meaning to.  
  
And consequently, he hadn’t been sleeping. Though time had continued to drag on all the same.  
  
 _Just one or two days_ , she’d said. Each of which had come and gone…  
  
But now, apparently, on the evening of the third, Freddie’s time had finally come.  
  
The fairy closed his eyes for a moment as his wife touched him, exhaling slowly, then turned to look up at her over his shoulder. “Course you can,” he said, “But let’s go in the kitchen, yeah, and leave him to it?” giving Oliver, who he’d been watching Halt and Catch Fire with, a little pat; his familiar already standing up to follow.  
  
“I’ll shout if I need you,” he murmured to the little Chin in a barely audible voice, giving him one more little ruffle before getting to his feet and gesturing toward the other room, offering Ruby the ghost of a smile.  
  
“Right behind you, love,” he said. “And I’ll put the kettle on too, yeah?”  
  
Ruby pulled up a chair at the bar, nodding that the kettle was a good idea, but turning to stare down at the way her hands clasped tightly to the little book, a talisman of hope, as if it would truly make a difference what was inside. The thoughts she’d so carefully put down on paper.  
  
When she’d asked for time, she knew she didn’t deserve it. She’d had time. Two weeks of it. And part of her wished that Freddie had railed at her. Told her she’d had long enough. That it was his turn now, not hers any longer.  
  
Because he would have been absolutely right to do so.  
  
As Freddie moved to turn the kettle on, Ruby watched him, taking in the familiar way he moved, the flow of his hands as they worked from memory doing all the small tasks required to start a cup of tea or coffee in motion. Her heart was heavy, both with the ache of the things she’d done, and not done, and the very real and visceral fear that she would lose him. That even now he was just waiting for the right time to walk away. To spare himself anymore hurt. The pain of it rose in her chest and tightened her throat.  
  
There was no easy way to start, she realized, looking down at her little book again. At the collection of thoughts and feelings that she’d worked so hard on over the last couple of weeks. It was something she’d come to value because she thought it might help. And it had. In giving her a way to revisit the things she knew to be true.  
  
So she looked down at the journal for a long moment, the thumb of her left hand worrying her wedding band as it always did when she was nervous or thoughtful. And then, realizing that there was only one thing she could say that truly mattered, at least right now, she pushed the book away.  
  
“What do _you_ need, baby?” Ruby asked in a soft, serious voice, looking up at him. “It never should’ve taken this long for me to ask. And that’s on me. For not seein’ that love, and trust, and affection is all well and good, but it’s not everything. And I’m sorry for that, Freddie. To the bottom of my heart.”  
  
Freddie had stopped what he was doing when he heard Ruby start to speak, though he hadn’t immediately turned to face her; listening, instead, to the words as they spilled out of her mouth, and trying very hard not to just sag where he stood. To sink down to the floor, and just sit there, his back to the cupboards, too disheartened - too defeated - even to reply.  
  
And miraculously, he thought, he managed it. He stayed on his feet, silent and unmoving, finally taking a deep breath before turning to face his wife, the tea things abandoned on the counter.  
  
He felt absolutely broken-hearted - but at the same time, he wasn’t tremendously surprised.  
  
And that, he thought, just made everything worse.  
  
“Ruby,” Freddie said quietly, fatigue etched into his voice as he looked into her eyes, “-I can’t do this again, love. I can’t have this same conversation _again_. Because I’ve told you what I need, and you know that I have. I told you before you left, I told you in your office after Lizzie - and I can’t tell you again now.”  
  
“If you honestly don’t know… if you can’t remember, then-” The fairy cut himself off, looking at her helplessly. “…well, then that’s really just it in a nutshell, isn’t it?”  
  
“Because I don’t need anymore apologies, sweetheart. I don’t want them. And if that’s what you’ve been waiting to give me, then we’re absolutely no better off now than we were before you left for Charleston.”  
  
“We haven’t moved so much as an inch.”  
  
He had expected this. Expected to get nothing more now than what little Ruby had left with. Her husband had _expected_ her - his wife - to let him down. Because everyone else in his life had. It was par for the course, and Ruby was just another tick on the list.  
  
And for that she felt truly ashamed.  
  
So she looked at him for a moment, and then slid from her seat, unable to sit still with the tumble of emotions that made her limbs tingle and her chest feel tight. She paced, worrying her thumb with her teeth.  
  
‘ _I’m sorry_ ’ had been Ruby’s default setting for so long, the knee-jerk reaction that kept her from getting hurt, that kept her safe, that sometimes she said it without meaning to. Without even wanting to. Like flinching from a raised hand. Metaphorically, of course. But ‘I’m sorry’ was a dead phrase. A substitute for any forward motion, for any evidence of genuine understanding.  
  
“I don’t wanna apologize to you again, Freddie.”  
  
“The only thing I want to give you is what you need. I want to give you your happiness. I want to give you all those things you’ve told me about. All the things you so very much deserve. All the things I should’ve been givin’ you all along. And I’ve said I understand until I’m blue in the face, but I haven’t shown you.”  
  
Ruby sagged a bit, looking very small, very scared, and very lost, feeling the thread of hope, of the chance to prove to her husband that she was utterly serious, utterly committed to this, to him and his needs, trembling between them like spider silk. She chewed her lip again before edging closer, needing to lessen the distance that separated them, if only physically.  
  
There was a small pause. Ruby’s hands gripped tight against her arms, and she looked down at the floor. Discomfort rose in her chest at the thought of continuing to admit all the ways that she’d failed. But admitting them, accepting them- accepting and genuinely understanding what Freddie needed as well - was the only way to change. The only way to move forwards. To start to heal her marriage and her husband’s broken heart.  
  
She was quite suddenly reminded of what Nua had said to her on the beach:  
  
“ _…what do you do when things aren’t going well or when you disagree? And here comes trust. Trust that you’re going to hurt one another and it’s going to happen and you’re going to feel horrible. Trust that sometimes, a shard is going to fall off, and you may be able to pick it up and fix it , or you may not. Trust that sometimes, you’re going to remind each other of something that happened in the past or that feelings are going to be hurt or things said in anger. Swallowing those things? That’s just swallowing poison, and it’s going to eat at your insides until you explode_.”  
  
Trust.  
  
Ruby unfurled her arms, letting them hang at her sides, not wanting to appear like she was frightened or defensive.  
  
“I realize that some of what I said before… a _lot_ of it actually… was wrong. For one, I made it seem like I’m scared of you. When it’s not you I’m scared of at all. Not for one minute.” She swallowed thickly. “Losin’ you scares me. The potential of not bein’ able to give you what you need scares me. And because of that, because I was scared of those parts of myself, somewhere along the line - somehow - I ended up tryin’ to mold you into someone you’re not. Someone I guess I thought I would understand better. Someone who I felt I might be able to make happy. When I should’ve only been tryin’ to make _you_ happy, Freddie. You. Not some version of you I let my insecurities run away with. It was wrong of me, and I never, ever intended for it to happen. But it did.”  
  
“You need me to trust you, Freddie. Trust the man you are. Because you’ve never given me reason not to. And I haven’t been giving you the same measure of it that I do Ephram.”  
  
“You need me to take your side. To support you, to have your back without question, like I didn’t do with Lizzie, or Mr. Savin. Their feelings - their pain - became more important than yours or Ephram’s, and it shouldn’t have been. Not for one second.”  
  
“You need to feel like our marriage - our relationship - can stand on it’s own. You need to be treated like a husband should be treated. You need to be seen as such, and not ‘the other husband.’ Not as a late edition. Not secondary to Ephram. Because you an’ him are not interchangeable.” Even now, that particular failure stung deeply. “Because I’m proud to be your wife. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of our family.”  
  
“The only thing I’m not proud of is me.”  
  
Ruby sighed slowly, hoping that her acknowledgments - her very real and utterly serious realizations and admissions - of all the things they’d talked about, of all the things he’d told her he needed, of all the ways she’d erred, would be a foothold. That somewhere in the barrier he’d raised against her, against getting hurt again, there was a place for her to hold on to. So that he didn’t retreat any further, even as he had every right and every reason to do so.  
  
“You need to know that I do love Ephram differently. But not more,” she clarified. “You an’ me-” Ruby raised a hand, ghosting it over Freddie’s heart, feeling the warmth of him and wanting so desperately to touch him. “- we’re different than me an’ him. Just like you and Ephram are different than us. And the three of us together… we’re different then as well. And that’s alright. Because expectin’ us all to be the same is just… settin’ things up for failure.”  
  
Ruby let out a slow breath. “None of this is about me, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t say that I miss you, Freddie. I miss the man I fell in love with. The man I’m still very much in love with. I miss the man that I stopped seein’, even though he’s been right in front of me the whole time.”  
  
Her hand raised again, fingertips brushing his forearm, curling gently around it. “The man who can think quicker on his feet than anyone I’ve ever known; who walks into a room and within seconds that room is completely his. Every eye, every word. He commands it, and every person in it, without an ounce of magic, and it steals my breath away every time. The man I hid in the ladies room with that day when we ran from Ned’s boys; the one who I helped lift those Faberge eggs like it was nothin’; the one who speaks, I don’t know… twenty languages? And knows the world better than I know my own backyard.”  
  
“I love the man who can tell a priceless piece of art from a fake in half a breath; the man who saved my life, and Ephram’s, with the sheer force of his magic and his… his bull-headed will, and his love.” Ruby sucked in a breath, fearful she was rambling but unable to stop.  
  
“He can be vain, and he can be arrogant and picky and stubborn, and change his mind a thousand times before he settles on something. But he gives, and gives, and gives with his whole heart. He gives because that’s part of how he shows he cares, how he shows that he loves you. He’s the kindest, gentlest man I’ve ever met, who doesn’t yell, doesn’t raise his voice, who isn’t violent or cruel despite what the world’s put him through, which is more than most people would survive. He still has compassion, and empathy, and he feels so much so deeply… that he sometimes pushes it all down… so the world can’t hurt him again.” Her eyes stung, but she pressed on. “So that no one - especially the ones he loves - can hurt him again.”  
  
“Yet I see a man who protects those that he loves fiercely and without a second thought for himself. Who will go up against the world for them, and move mountains if need be. He lives every single day to the goddamn fullest even though he has a hundred years of life left to go. I see a man who has a thousand other things that make up who he is. Good things, bad things, in between things. Things I stopped seein’, and started tryin’ to change.” Ruby looked up, both hands now gripping Freddie’s arms as the words simply wouldn’t stop. She looked lost and frightened, but her eyes were bright. Her face was flushed and her jaw set tightly.  
  
“When you’ve always been perfect just like you are.”  
  
She paused, taking a moment to catch her breath. “And I… I also have these.” She moved back to her notebook, dashing at her eyes and flipping open the cover and pulling out a couple of items. “This is what I’ve been doin’ the last two days.”  
  
She laid them out on the counter so he could see them. The first was more a business card than anything. “I found… I found a… therapist. For myself. Twice a week. There’s things I haven’t finished dealing with. Things that it’s gonna take me awhile to get over. And it’s affecting us. Affectin’ how I treat you. Affectin’ the bigger picture. So… I’m gonna try it. See if it helps.”  
  
“And this.” She slid a little black booklet forwards. “I got a passport. I know I’ve got another one in that file you put together-” The one that came from the very real probability that Martin Adjaye might have been the end of him, and he had wanted her and Ephram to be safe and taken care of. “- and I know you could make me one if you needed too, but I wanted to get one on my own.” She looked at him, still feeling very, very unsure. “I meant it when I said I wanted you to show me the world, Freddie. And a passport may not mean much overall, but…” She gave a small shrug and trailed off, unsure what else to say on the matter.  
  
The last thing she pushed forwards was a piece of paper that had the June’s House letterhead on it. The halfway house for battered women, abused children, that her husbands had given her, convinced that Ruby with her own experience of domestic violence in her marriage to David Johnson would make into a worthy enterprise. Of all the things she’d been doing, this one had been the hardest, and taken the longest. She turned it so he could see it.  
  
“I made Brianna full-time manager. I raised her salary. Gave her all the rights and privileges that I have. And I’ve got three more ladies ready to interview to get us fully staffed. I’ve been puttin’ it off. Thinkin’ I could do it all myself. But I can’t. I’m still the owner, I’ll always be the owner, because this place is very, very important to me for a number of reasons.” She touched the paper with the tips of all five fingers.  
  
“But being here is more important. My family is more important. I’ll only have to go in a couple of days a week now, for the things that still need my attention. But… Brianna can handle the majority. She wants to. And I know that it might look like I’m givin’ it up, but I’m not. Not at all. I’m tryin’ to find balance. So… no more five and six day work weeks. No more twelve hour days. No more late nights slavin’ over paperwork that someone else can easily do.”  
  
All the little items lay on the counter, and Ruby chewed her lip. “Maybe I could’ve done it all from Charleston, but it didn’t feel right. And maybe I should’ve told you, instead of… leavin’ you waitin’ on me. Again. Which I didn’t have no right to ask. I thought you would need to see somethin’ physical, some tangible proof, instead of just hearing me talk.”  
  
“Because as much as we need to talk, the talkin’ I’ve done so far ain’t done shit for us. So this… maybe I’m totally off base. Maybe it looks like it’s all for me. But it’s not. _You_ need to be a priority to me, Freddie. And this is me tryin’ to make a start in showin’ you that you very much are.”  
  
“I love my job. I love helping people, making sure they have what they need to make a better life for themselves. But making sure _you_ have what you need is more important. And I know you’re not pinin’ away here waitin’ on me to get home, that you have your own life and your own projects and things you love outside of all this. Outside of us. Things that make _you_ happy. You need to be happy _here_ too. To have what you need. And it’s time - it’s damn well past time - for me to start giving it to you.“  
  
She held her arms out to the sides and let them fall back, waiting on it all to be wrong. Waiting on him to tell her she’d missed the point entirely. Again. To not be even a hairs breadth closer to giving him what he needed, to showing him that she genuinely understood now.  
  
“So. There’s that.”  
  
Freddie stayed quiet as Ruby spoke, watching her struggle to say the things that she wanted to, her fear and anxiety writ as large as her obvious desire to somehow get things ‘right’ with him now; caught between his instinctive urge to want to soothe her - to cuddle her close to his chest and tell her not to worry, not about him, because he loved her as desperately as ever - and a certain amount of… not cynicism exactly - as Ephram had once pointed out, Freddie, for all his jadedness, was no cynic - but something more along the lines of self-preservation. Of careworn caution.  
  
He listened as she repeated all the things she’d been told before - by the fairy himself, by Nuadia, by Ephram; though the actual _admission_ that she didn’t understand him, and had been consciously attempting to rearrange him into a more pleasing shape, was a first - making a conscious effort not to step back from her when she reached out to touch him. Surprised to find that, maybe for the first time in his life, he didn’t _want_ to be handled.  
  
He listened as she said that she missed him - though to Freddie, that seemed a contradictory and hurtful statement. Listened as she itemized all the qualities he possessed that she ostensibly found hard to relate to - qualities that had inspired her to want to change him in the first place - extolling them now as virtues she adored, and silently, he wished that were true. That she really did see assets when she looked at him, as opposed to a collection of perplexing vexations in need of adjustment.  
  
But somehow… it all just seemed a bit pat. A bit in the nick of time.  
  
And when Ruby paused, Freddie opened his mouth to gently tell her so, knowing that he owed her a reaction at the very least - but before he could get the words out, she had carried on again, pulling things from her notebook and laying them on the counter. Showing him what she had done; her pieces of proof that all was changing for the better.  
  
“If you think that talking to someone like that will help you, love,” the fairy said softly, his eyes moving from the therapist’s business card to his wife’s still uneasy face, “-to feel better, and process things, then I think that’s a good idea. But only if you _want_ to, yeah? Not because of me.” The new passport he wasn’t sure what to do with, and just acknowledged it with a small noise from the back of his throat as she went on - but the news about June’s House left him gobsmacked, and Freddie just stared at the paper for a moment before looking up at his wife again.  
  
“Ruby,” he said quietly, his voice worn and wounded, “-I’m not a child. I don’t need a minder. And I certainly don’t need you giving up your job - the job that Ephram and I _created_ for you; the job that you _love_ \- just to fuss over me all day long in some bizarre effort to placate me and make me feel important.”  
  
His eyes searched hers for some sort of understanding. “How could you honestly think that I’d want that? It’s a needless useless sacrifice, sweetheart - and it’s one that I haven’t asked for. One that I _wouldn’t_ ask for.”  
  
Freddie sighed. “I mean, obviously I miss you and Ephram when you’re working, and selfishly, I’d always rather have you both with me-” he looked at his wife, his frustrated incredulity showing, “-but not to the exclusion of all else, yeah?”  
  
“Because I’m a grown bloody man-”  
  
The fairy sighed again, “…and I know a recipe for resentment and disaster when I see it.”  
  
“Never mind the fact that I do continue to exist even when you’re not thinking of me…”  
  
He went quiet for a moment, the silence that followed seeming almost deafening, before he went on in a low ragged voice, “And honestly, what I keep coming back to with all of this, darling, is _why_.”  
  
“Why do you see everything so clearly now? I mean… what’s changed, sweetheart? Why do you trust me now when you didn’t before? Why can you support me now when that seemed such an impossibility only a few months ago?”  
  
“Why have I suddenly been elevated to the status of full-fledged husband alongside Ephram?”  
  
“Because I haven’t changed, love. I’m the same man I’ve always been. And more importantly, all of these are things you’ve heard before.”  
  
Freddie looked at Ruby sadly. “I mean, you _don’t_ understand me, love - you said it yourself; so why are all these things that you wanted so desperately to change about me suddenly the things that you love best? How can that be?”  
  
The fairy lifted his eyes to hers again, though it hurt to do it. “If I’m honest, I think it’s because I asked you a question that frightened you.”  
  
“I think it’s because you know that you want to keep me,” he said softly, “…even if you aren’t entirely sure what _for_.”  
  
There was movement in the hallway then, and Freddie turned to look as Ephram stepped into the kitchen, murmuring a rough-sounding, “Hello, love,” before falling back into an awkward painful sort of silence; wishing he could just flee the room and feeling rooted to the spot instead.  
  
“I was listening,” Ephram told them both right away, without any apology. “I figured with things come to this point it wouldn’t do no harm, but now I see I should of stepped into this well before now. That was my mistake and I own up to it.. I’m head of this household, I need to keep on top of things even if – maybe most of all if – it’s about the relationship between you two. The two people I love and wanna share my life with.”  
  
He sat at the kitchen island, because if he kept standing, the racehorse tension in his lanky body would have made him start to visibly shake in anger. “You should of told me just how bad it got,” Ephram admonished Ruby and Freddie. “I knew there was some fuss between you'ns, but I trusted you’d be able to work it out.” He shook his head, face tight and eyes narrowed. “Can’t say this don’t disappoint me some.”  
  
Ephram didn’t love them any less, but the extent to which this had disintegrated left him profoundly disturbed. Faintly angry as well, but he knew that would pass; the very real possibility, though, of Freddie having withdrawn too far to be coaxed out of his understandable hurt and unhelpful petulance, of Ruby having spun herself into constant anxiety through her stubborn lack of awareness? That was enough to raise Ephram’s hackles.  
  
“Tell me,” he said, looking from Freddie to Ruby and back again, “tell me honest, now – do either of you think this…” Ephram waved a hand at the paperwork that Ruby had produced, “…is gonna be a turning point for you? I mean, do you really _deep down_ inside for sure think it might help?”  
  
When Freddie didn’t utterly dismiss her desire to seek some sort of psychological counseling, a bit of tension eased from Ruby's shoulders. “I do think so,” she nodded. “For myself. Because I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t need some help with all this. Obviously.” A tiny smile flitted across her face.  
  
Though the tension sprang right back, and crept into her features as he expressed his not overly gracious opinion on what she was trying to do with the shelter. “Stop it,” she snapped, biting back on the slip of her temper before it could continue. “I know you’re not a child. I know you don’t need a minder. It was _me_ needed the minder, remember? When you and Ephram thought I needed a hobby to keep me outta trouble? Because I’m not stupid, and I’m not a child either. I know that’s what June’s started as. A way for me to spend my time and keep my nose clean. And despite that, despite my initial feelin’s-” That she’d argued with Ephram over once before. “- I love that place. With all my heart.”  
  
Ruby let out a long breath through her nose. “I’m not some deranged Stepford Wife, Freddie. And I’ve done a lotta things, but I have never once tried to placate you. And I’ve never knowingly lied to you. Me doin’ a few less hours down there, less paperwork, havin’ less stress because I can’t cram 26 hours into a 24 hour day… that’s not useless.”  
  
“And I know my own mind. Though sometimes nobody around here seems to think so. Because why on God’s green earth would I willfully and knowingly do somethin’ if I thought for one second it would cause strife between us Freddie?” Her voice was gentle, though clearly upset. “Givin’ up a bit of a little bit of somethin’ I love for something else I love doesn’t breed resentment. That’s why it’s worth it.”  
  
Freddie’s comments on being grown, and existing outside the realm of her thoughts, both being facts she was glaringly aware of, she let pass. She needed to pick her battles, after all.  
  
“I see because you made me see, Freddie. You shook the fuckin’ tree, hard, and I realized that all the things I thought I’d been doin’… because I honestly and truly thought that I was givin’ you what you needed, with a few exceptions… that I’d been up the wrong goddamn tree nearly the whole time.”  
  
“I _have_ trusted you. In the very beginning. I never trusted anyone more in my life than you an’ Ephram. But somewhere along the way I forgot how.” She paused, giving a tiny, helpless shrug. “The support… all I can say is that until you pointed it out, I thought I was. But I wasn’t.”  
  
“You’re there because you never should’ve been anywhere else, Freddie. If I’d known what I was doin’, then…” Ruby cut herself off and shook her head. Excuses didn’t matter. “You’ve always been there in my heart. Right beside him. But I didn’t show you that. I didn’t treat you like that. And I should have. From the very start. From the moment I was blessed enough to call you husband for the first time.”  
  
“I know you haven’t changed, Freddie. And I don’t ever want you to. It was me that changed. And no, I don’t understand all of you. Some of you, yes, but certainly not _all_ of you. But I want to understand. I’ve always wanted to.”  
  
He went on, asking her why. Why she wanted so badly to keep him. And she tried to remember that no one in Freddie’s life had ever wanted to keep him before. They used him and then they threw him away. She tried to remember that, always.  
  
“Because I can’t imagine a world without you in it, Freddie. Because livin’ without you is… it’s Hell. When I was gone… and I woke up every mornin’ without either of you. Without bein’ able to see you, or touch you, or smell you… or hear the way you grumble when I try and wake you up. It’s a slice of fuckin’ Hell that I don’t ever wanna repeat. And when I die, if I don’t go to Heaven, that’ll be my purgatory. My punishment.”  
  
“I saw you, Freddie, all those things that you are, when I first met you. And when it got serious, when we started… fallin’ in love… I was so happy. I thought that finally, here’s the only other person in this world I’m meant to be with. You. And Ephram. And then… I wasn’t scared anymore, because I knew you loved me and you meant it. You mean everything you’ve ever told me.”  
  
“And then… out of Eden… bad things started to happen. It felt like… like everything was about to be ripped away from me. It turned on that part of me that wanted to run away. To keep myself safe. But I stayed. I stayed because I knew you would keep me safe. You and Ephram. I stayed because I trusted you. Because I saw all the qualities in you that I see now. But at the same time, without knowin’ it… somewhere between all of us nearly dyin’, between all the bad, and the horror, and the fear… somethin’ inside me pulled back. I unknowingly closed the door on all those good things, on all the understanding, and on the parts of you that I saw from that first day. And I started puttin’ those walls back up. Brick by brick. Every old hurt. Every old fear. The very walls the both of you helped me tear down. And they blinded me. They put you where I couldn’t see you. And with the real you locked away on the other side of those walls, I was left flounderin’… and ended up tryin’ to make my own version of you. A version that might hurt less when it… when I finally lost it too.”  
  
“And that is my fault. Not yours. You’re half of my heart, Freddie. Ephram is the other half. I can’t live without both halves.” Maybe it wasn’t thoughtful enough, or didn’t hold enough deeper meaning, but it was the truth as Ruby knew it. Three pieces of a whole, shards of gold and diamond and emeralds, all fitting together to hold the others in place.  
  
She looked up as Ephram came in, saying her own hello’s and moving to stand near Freddie, but giving him space, as Ephram took up his perch and gave his own feelings on the subject at hand. Ruby could feel his eyes boring into her. She could even feel the heat of them, the way his anger thrummed in the air between the three of them, as they moved to Freddie as well. And she felt like nothing less than a chastised child, even as she knew Ephram would never treat either of them as such.  
  
Her shame was doubled though, at his disappointment in them. Though he had every right to be. Because Ruby knew she deserved it.  
  
Ephram asked his question, and Ruby looked up at her husband. “I do,” she said simply and honestly, her voice quiet but firm. Because she believed it. She believed it, and all she wanted was the chance to prove herself.  
  
She swallowed as she waited on Freddie’s answer.  
  
When Ephram had announced his disappointment in the both of them, his anger showing though it was clearly being tightly contained, Freddie had just stared at him for a moment, disbelief and pain in his eyes, gutted to hear that his witch believed him at least fifty percent responsible for everything that had transpired. For the way that things stood now.  
  
As though every instance of his trying his best to explain his feelings, to make Ruby understand the hows and whys of what had hurt him, hadn’t been a supreme act of will on his part to overcome his usual urge to bury it all and simply move on.  
  
He stood there, as raw and vulnerable as an open wound, for just long enough to inhale a shaky breath - and when he exhaled again, the shutters had come down over his eyes.  
  
Ruby wanted it over and done with, that much he knew. And Ephram seemed to want the same thing - so that’s what he would do. It turned out that Nua had been wrong, and Freddie’s instincts had been right all along: he was difficult to love. Difficult to understand, to deal with, to care for; and whatever way anyone managed to do it, he needed to be grateful for.  
  
Nothing was perfect. Hurt was inevitable. And ultimately, concessions had to be made.  
  
Ruby was trying, and regardless of her motivations, or Freddie’s perceptions, _that_ had to be what mattered.  
  
So the fairy swallowed the anger he’d felt at the way Ruby had vented her little self-righteous spleen over the gift of the shelter. Swallowed his bewilderment at the way she’d gone on to talk about her chosen work-week as though it had somehow been thrust upon her at his insistence; and chose not to point out that once again she’d failed to consider him at all when she’d made this enormous decision on his behalf - seeing as he’d just opened a business of his own that would need his time and attention.  
  
Only… now it wasn’t on his behalf? But solely for herself? Often the more Ruby spoke the less Freddie felt he really understood.  
  
And as for the rest…  
  
The rest, he had nothing to say to. It was all just a thousand words he’d heard before - sweet words, lovely words - but nothing he felt really required an answer. Because Ruby didn’t need an answer from him. Not really. She just needed to say it all out loud.  
  
Because that way the words became facts. Spoken aloud, they were truths that couldn’t be contested.  
  
And Freddie was too tired, too defeated, to do anything other than accept that. He honestly didn’t think he’d ever been more tired in his life - not even when he’d been left nearly bloodless.  
  
It was just a litany of faulty almost-syllogisms. Ruby knew these things now because she _knew_ ; because he had told her - and that she _hadn’t_ known the other times he’d told her had been deemed irrelevant. She had dismissed him, and made him an after-thought; sided against him and tried to change him, out of hurt and fear - nothing more. Though it was hurt and fear that he hadn’t caused, but had only ever been tied to _him_ \- never, inexplicably, to Ephram.  
  
Just more of the same, same, _same_.  
  
But she loved him. She loved him so much - complete with all the necessary mentions of Heaven and Hell as they related to his presence in her life.  
  
And he believed that. He knew it.  
  
So what more could he ask for? His hurt had worn out its welcome.  
  
Ollie trotted in then, a moment behind Ephram, drawn by the spike of his fairy’s distress, and he looked at each of the three of them in turn, before making a beeline to Freddie’s side, looking up at him and then giving a sharp bark of concern. And Freddie lifted him into his arms, murmuring, “It’s fine, mate. I’m alright,” before turning back to Ruby and Ephram, knowing that Ruby was waiting on his endorsement.  
  
“I think that we need some sort of a turning point,” he said in a low voice. “So if Ruby thinks that this is it, then that’s what it will have to be.”  
  
Ephram made a disgruntled sound after both of his partners had weighed in – or _given_ in, rather, Freddie deflating souffle-like with passive compliance and Ruby saying yes because she never wanted to make tough decisions. To say it was _frustrating_ would be understating it.  
  
“For fucksake, Ruby,” Ephram snapped, “we gave you June’s because you was acting like a stupid child and not making any decisions about your own life. If you don’t want it, sell it or give it away. But don’t act like it was some big affront because I can tell you that Freddie and me–” he gestured between them, “–didn’t want wedding rings but we wore em anyhow, and we didn’t wanna get you one but we did anyhow since it got pretty _damn_ obvious you wanted one bad, the way you kept staring at other women's rings. Neither of us feels good about that hetero bullshit but we kept our mouths shut to make you happy. We just don’t holler it from the bell tower as if just announcing how much we love you means we don’t gotta pay attention.” Ephram bounced his fist against the island top, the muscles in his arm tight and tense. “And I _told_ you that Freddie won’t open up easy and you gotta keep persevering. Otherwise he gets hurt and _more_ hurt until he can’t think past it, just curls himself up with it and won’t let go.”  
  
But as Ephram finished his admonitions and looked from Ruby’s anxious expression to the way that Freddie looked steeped in desolation, some of his anger ebbed to give way to feeling bad for them. After all, each of his partners was beloved to him, and both had been through such heartbreakingly awful things in their lives that Ephram hated to think that their relationship, something that should be bringing them joy and safety, would have instead reopened wounds in his poor Freddie. How Ruby had made herself a frazzled mess.  
  
“Sweetheart,” Ephram said to Freddie, “don’t do that, don’t turn off. You know I ain’t ever gonna disregard how you feel, not ever. Right now, though, I get the feeling like no matter what Ruby does, it’s only gonna upset you more ... even if it ain’t that bad.” He wanted to reach for Freddie’s hand, but was also aware that Ollie was watching him very, _very_ closely and didn’t want to trespass.  
  
“And you, honey.” Looking at Ruby, now, Ephram continued, “Listening to all of this I’m starting to think you just ain’t gonna be _able_ to understand how Freddie works. You try, I know, but looking at where things stand right now? I don’t for one goddamn second believe that your ideas of where to go are gonna do a slick gooseshit’s worth of good.”  
  
Ephram rubbed both hands briskly over his face, shoring up his fortitude when he faced his beloved partners again. “What’s gonna happen now,” he said with quiet authority, “is that we’re all gonna keep living here, sharing our home. But you two–” Ephram looked slowly, deliberately, between Freddie and Ruby so they got the full import of his decision, “–ain’t gonna be together. Not romantically, anyhow. Be friends, take it easy, fuckin’ _learn_ each other. And each other’s limitations. You won’t have to keep rehashing all this muck over and over, you can set it aside some until you rebalanced yourselves out and can tackle it.”  
  
Standing then, Ephram reached out to snag a couple of fingers into Freddie’s shirtsleeve, the other fingers in Ruby’s blouse. “I love you both with everything in me,” he said. “And it pains me to know you’re in this turmoil. This is what I honestly believe is gonna help, and I want each of you to really, really accept it like breathing room and not as a punishment.”  
  
 _Stupid child._  
  
Those were the only words that Ruby heard at first. And it felt like she’d been slapped in the face. It would have been easier to take actually, a real hit. Instead of the deep seated disappointment that hung heavy in the air. And the instinct to scream ‘ _don’t ever call me stupid_ ’ rose up as bright and fast as the words that had flown at her like acid for so many years. ‘ _Stupid bitch, stupid cunt, stupid Ruby… stupid, stupid, stupid_ …’ And at that moment, she couldn’t see that Ephram wasn’t calling her stupid, he was telling her she’d stubbornly acted that way all those months ago.  
  
But Ruby didn’t scream. Instead, she hung her head, and stared at the floor. Her voice had lapsed into something quiet, subdued. An instinct born of seeing your world crumbling around you and having your hands tied helplessly behind you. “Of course I want it. I just… I thought it might help not bein’ gone quite so much.“  
  
And then as he went on, making Ruby feel smaller and smaller, and announced that they’d never wanted the rings she’d gotten for them, and had never wanted to get her one either, Ruby felt like the biggest fool in the world.  
  
"I told you you didn’t have to wear it. That I would take ‘em back that very day. I told you all it was was a symbol. That it didn’t define us. That I know we don’t fit into some predefined box, and I’ve never wanted or expected us too.”  
  
Ruby’s voice hardened just a bit. “But if you didn’t want them, you should’ve said so then. Right then, ‘stead o’ smilin’ and tellin’ me how nice they were. Instead of makin me feel… makin’ me feel even more stupid than I’ve already been. Instead of lyin’ to me this whole time.” She looked between both men, unable to hide the hurt on her face.  
  
“So here.” She slid her ring off, holding it tightly in her hand, feeling the weight of it, the warmth, one last time before setting it on the countertop. It made a soft clicking noise, the diamonds sparking in the lights that hung overhead.  
  
“Take it back. Keep it. Sell it. Throw it the fuckin’ water. Cause I don’t want it if it doesn’t mean anything. If it’s not something you wanted to give me. If it’s just some way of shuttin’ me the hell up.” Ruby shook her head, and pressed a hand over her eyes, unable to say anything else on the subject.  
  
But as terrible as she felt - hollowed out and empty - the hurt on Freddie’s face made it all worse. The way he shut down, sank into himself, pulled away. And as much as she couldn’t explain herself. As much as she never found the right words, or the right way, or the right… _anything_ , Ruby would give anything to make it better. Though all she’d done was make it worse.  
  
But she didn’t know what else to do. How had she missed the mark so exceptionally so many times? Maybe she _was_ stupid. All her efforts, all her words, all her stupid, stupid ideas… were just salt poured onto the claw marks she’d left in Freddie’s flesh. Claw marks left over in her attempts to love him more, to show him that she meant what she said, to try and make him see. But that was the thing wasn’t it? She couldn’t _make_ him see anything. Even in her apologies, she was trying to change him. Like a hypocrite. And every word, every action, everything… her mere presence… just rubbed the salt deeper into those wounds.  
  
She was no longer a balm, but a burden. A weight that was carried because the bearer maybe thought they had no other choice.  
  
So the choice was made for them both.  
  
And instead of a slap, it felt like a boot straight to her gut. She paled, and felt slightly sick, but didn’t move as Ephram laid down his law. She couldn’t look at Freddie. Because part of her - the smallest, most fragile, emotionally troubled, part of her - felt that he’d wanted this for awhile. This break, temporary or not. And had simply been waiting on someone else to do it for him. That true to form, like the expert con-man he was, he’d left himself an out.  
  
Well, if that was the case, he’d succeeded. It was a selfish, petty thought, and Ruby didn’t voice it or let it show at all. And later she would regret thinking it, because it wasn’t actually how she felt. She didn’t think Freddie cruel or manipulative. Not at all.  
  
Ephram’s fingers twisted into her shirt, but she didn’t look at him either. She wanted to. She wanted him to hold her, tell her this was just a setback. Tell her that he knew she and Freddie could get through this. But it wasn’t coming. She didn’t expect it, nor did she reach for it. She just stood there, numb, with her heart bleeding out of her chest. .  
  
But the one thing she could focus on, the one other thought besides the white noise screaming in her head, was that Ephram knew them both better than they knew each other. And it was never so glaringly obvious as right now. So Ruby nodded, as she was expected to do, because what else was there?  
  
“Alright,” she said quietly, though sincerely, pushing the words up through a wash of tightly restrained tears. “If that’s what you think’s best. And if that’s what Freddie wants too. If that’s what’s needed. I’m willin’.”  
  
Freddie was more than a little taken aback when Ephram so bluntly laid bare the truth of their feelings about their wedding rings, his eyes widening in surprise - and a faint touch of horror - that quickly gave way to a swell of respect for the man that he loved. That Ephram could do what he couldn’t. That he could walk headlong into that sort of bone-deep unpleasant honesty and know that he could withstand its effects.  
  
“We know you told us all that, love,” Freddie said, finally turning his eyes back to Ruby, “…but… it was Christmas morning - maybe our _last_ Christmas; our _only_ Christmas together - and you’d just presented us with a pair of rings that you’d obviously taken a tremendous amount of time and care to choose for us… So what were we supposed to do, sweetheart? Hand them back and say no? When you’d set your heart on our having them?” The fairy’s eyes drifted to where she’d dramatically left her own ring sitting on the countertop, and then back again. “We _didn’t_ lie to you - that you wanted me to have something like that, that meant what it did to you, that was such a weighty permanent symbol in your eyes, was wonderful - but you didn’t give us any _choice_ , Ruby. You didn’t talk to us about it, or ask how we felt about that sort of symbol. You just went ahead and did it…”  
  
He sighed. “Rather like you’ve done now.”  
  
Freddie bit his lip for a moment, then went on - Ephram had already done the heavy lifting, but he shouldn’t have to carry the weight for the two of them. “It’s such a narrow traditional little box that you want for us, love… and it’s one we don’t fit into. One we don’t care to fit into. Or need to. But it’s so clearly the one that you _want_ …”  
  
“And that’s why we bought you that ring. Because we love you, and we knew how happy it would make you. How happy it _did_ make you. And really… how could we not? You made sure that we had them, and that we knew how important they were to you, so what kind of uncaring arseholes would we be not to reciprocate?”  
  
He fell quiet again after that, just listening as Ephram went on; and when their witch made his decree - when he told them in no uncertain terms how things would be moving forward - Freddie just clutched Ollie harder, his knees feeling as though they’d suddenly turned to water, blood rushing in his ears as the beating of his heart seemed to grow louder and harder to ignore. Disoriented by the force of an explosion he hadn’t expected and was standing too close to.  
  
He couldn’t look at either of them. Just stood there, trying to remind himself for a moment which way was up; a miasma of pain, guilt, and shame swirling through him.  
  
And, undeniably, just the tiniest bit of relief that finally _something_ had changed.  
  
Which only made him feel a thousand times worse.  
  
But maybe Ruby would be happier this way. No longer having to search for reasons to love him. No longer having to remember to factor him into her thinking.  
  
She could be free of all that, free of _him_ , without ever having to be anything other than Nice.  
  
And god, he just wanted _so much_ for her to be happy…  
  
Freddie bit his lip harder, his grip on Ollie like iron as the little Chin sat in his arms watching Ephram suspiciously while refusing to even dignify Ruby at all; and he didn’t move when he felt Ephram catch his sleeve. Didn’t look up. Just listened as Ruby agreed to abide by the law. And then he nodded his head, murmuring, “Breathing room… yeah…” before taking a step back and swallowing hard, needing to be somewhere else.  
  
Ephram couldn’t hold them both at once, after all.  
  
“I think I need some air,” Freddie said softly, still not quite looking at either of the ones that he loved, “I… I’ll be back soon…”  
  
And then he and Ollie were gone, the sound of the front door closing behind them a few minutes later standing in lieu of any further explanation; the fairy’s own wedding ring left on the side table in the hall.


End file.
